


tell me where it hurts

by VelvetKaisoo



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Vampires, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 09:54:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21847765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VelvetKaisoo/pseuds/VelvetKaisoo
Summary: The middle of the snowy forest was starkly different to the country town he had grown up in. Perhaps that was less due to the weather, and entirely due to the fact he was now a vampire outlaw.
Relationships: Do Kyungsoo | D.O/Kim Jongin | Kai
Comments: 8
Kudos: 23
Collections: Round 3: Autumn and Winter - On the Snow





	tell me where it hurts

**Author's Note:**

> **Prompt Flake:** Self-Prompt  
>  **Author's Note:** I want to say a big big thankyou to the lovely mods for their work, as well as J who gave me this prompt - I changed it a bit and it's less fluffy than we both intended but oop it was fun to write anyway <3

The trees rustled in a breeze he could barely feel, clumps of snow with weights too great falling off their branches. White cascaded downward, piling around trunks in stacks of diamonds. It reflected sunrays back up under the rich green leaves, lighting them up like yule decorations.

Crunches sounded underfoot with each step he took, the echoes lost to the atmosphere of the expansive forest. Unseen birds called to each other, unheard rabbits bound between spruces. Everything was so alive around him, interconnected in a way that left bitter nostalgia to claw at the back of his throat. He’d been like them once, a part of something he didn’t even fully know existed. How cruel it was that his senses were now all the more in tune with observing it, now that observing was all he could do. No matter how close he got, there’d only be more distance.

Adjusting the load in his grip, a wayward shard snagged his finger. A hiss and a downward glance. The pure white sheet below blossomed the splatter of a red droplet. He squeezed the wooden splinter out of his fingertip, clenching his jaw. When it was done, he took deep breaths through flared nostrils. The cold air stung his airway.

Most of Jongin’s body was numb, lost to the relentless cold, though not his gums. Those ached and swelled, hot and itchy flesh stretching over bone and begging to burst. No amount of desensitising snow could hope to soothe the searing pain. He’d tried, about twenty minutes earlier, to desperately pack the white powder under his lips. It had ended with blistering skin and a fit of spluttering coughs. He’d spent too long after that just sitting in his silence before collecting himself. It may have been a guise, but he still had a job to do.

The logs of timber tethered him, away from the pain in his teeth and the itch in his skin, with their weight and rough surface. His injured finger continued to rub along the rugged bark as he trekked. Both too soon and not soon enough, he returned to the cabin. The wooden shack was picture-perfect, with its stacked log walls, cozy veranda and lazy tendrils of smoke puffing out the chimney.

The cabin, surrounded by a snow-fallen forest, looked like something out of a painting. It’s perfection made it stand out even more than its structure. The decking was clean, the logs un-aged. Most notably, there wasn’t a single snowflake on it. Even the roof remained free of snow. If anyone came looking, they’d know exactly how temporary this was.

That was just the risk they’d taken, he supposed.

Heavy footsteps thundered across the deck as he made his way to the front door. Without so much as a knock, he shoved the entranceway open with a ram of his shoulder, and then closed it behind him.

“I’m back,” he said, the words coming out in a husky grumble. His voice, it was yet another thing that felt foreign now.

Inside it was immediately darker. Warmer, too. On the opposite side of the room to him breathed a fire under the chimney, its flames waving at him in greeting. The only other light source was the candles placed on tables and floorboards around the space.

Jongin continued to stand in his sodden clothes and snow-caked boots by the door until the soft patter of socked feet came out of the bedroom -- one of only two off-shoots from the main room. Kyungsoo appeared with a graceful twirl, candlelight glittering off his earrings and settling into his sparkling eyes. He peeked his head out from behind the doorway before fully trotting over to the entrance. The quick steps and excited smile somehow reminded Jongin of Monggu, and when Kyungsoo came to help him with the logs he released them with a sigh.

“Come in, come in,” Kyungsoo said, cradling the frozen and muddied hunks of timber against his clean and soft grey jumper like he wasn’t afraid of ruining the fabric. He probably wasn’t. Jongin almost scoffed. “No use standing there like a boar in a tea shop.”

Following as directed, Jongin slowly began removing his boots, socks and thick parka. There was really no reason to, seeing as he barely felt temperature and anything he dirtied could be magicked back to how it was. Having something to do with his hands felt comfortable, at least. A short moment to catch his bearings.

Kyungsoo carefully placed a couple of the firewood logs into the maw of flames under the chimney. As the flakes of ice that still clung to the bark were licked by heat, they hissed and spat their displeasures. The sound was a welcomed cover as Jongin made his way to the couch. The maroon leather still let out its own audible groans, but Jongin ignored it as he noticed the two mugs set upon the coffee table. Kyungsoo sat beyond the mahogany furniture, sitting on the rug right in front of the fire, staring into its depths. It could have been magic-related, or it might not have been, Jongin never knew.

At last, the witch twisted around, leaning back on an arm as he peered at Jongin over his shoulder. Hair tufted over pale skin, the same pink as summer mornings his mother used to warn him about. The man in front of him was so different to what he had known, to what he’d thought he’d known. There was no flowing white shirt under a grimy tunic, no scuffed tights or worn leather shoes. Now it was a long grey knitted sweater, milk-white legs and thick woolen socks that covered half the witch’s calf.

“Are you sad?” he was eventually asked.

Jongin actually did scoff this time, though there was no humour to it. The question felt like too much and not enough at the same time. Far too confrontational, yet still cowardly. Like someone had ripped out his lungs then asked why he was feeling breathless.

Kyungsoo rose from the floor and made his way next to Jongin, soundlessly.

“Here.” Jongin felt the skin of his face being pinched. Kyungsoo peeled something frozen from the base of his cheek to just under his eye. “Be careful, the cold will freeze just about anything out there.”

The vampire saw the smooth streak of ice: his sadness immortalised, just like every other aspect of his being. Kyungsoo threw it in the fire before the warmth of his hands could thaw it.

“Are you scared...?” This time there was hesitation, consideration. Kyungsoo eyes were downcast as he pulled his sleeves further over his hands, picking at its seams. The question was still unsatisfying -- leaving Jongin halfway between staying deathly silent and screaming that _yes, of course he was_. His limbo was short lived as Kyungsoo appended, “Of me?”

At that, he deflated. Those spring nights spent in a field or by the lake returned to him. Hot afternoons making excuses to stay at the apothecary longer… and that night, under the stars. The last night he’d remained human. It was different now, that was certain. He was angry and confused, upset and frustrated. But none of that had the power to erase the past. Nothing could rewrite the year Jongin had spent falling in love with Kyungsoo.

Even if it wasn’t the same Kyungsoo.

“...No,” he said. The gravel scraping against his throat didn’t stop, and at once the sharp pain in his mouth returned. And with it, flashes of that night. “But I am scared of _them_.”

Kyungsoo had once read him part of a book about unbelievable creatures, back at home. Different fantastical species that were plagued with conflict and war. He had read, with a soothing cadence that had carried over the chorus of cicadas outside, that one either died too young or lived long enough to become what they feared most. Jongin was beginning to think that autumn story he'd barely paid attention to was more real than he'd first considered. Perhaps that was Kyungsoo's warning, his attempt at foreshadowing.

The witch was staring at him now, as surrounding light began to irritate Jongin eyes and his gums flared like he'd tried to swallow pure fire. He knew on what side of the prophecy he now existed, but he wondered about Kyungsoo.

"They won't hurt us." Kyungsoo spoke with such certainty that Jongin almost believed him. "They won't find us here."

He reached out, gently lifting one of the ceramic mugs off the coffee table. He handed it to Jongin, who peered inside to watch the swirling hot chocolate churn and sway. The presumably once stark and solid marshmallow had melted into a gooey conglomerate of sugary dependence. Crisp white lost itself in the muddy sea.

"Drink up," he said. "It'll take away the pain of your fangs."

The words were an accelerating moon, hauling tides as they passed. Brown sloshed as Jongin flinched.

"Sorry, Nini. I-"

"Don’t.” The command was punctuated by the sharp thud of porcelain colliding with wood. Still steaming hot chocolate mellowed in the mug, ignorant of the way the marshmallow continued to spin. Watching the dizzying scene, Jongin stood from the couch with nowhere in mind to go. His freedom was lost somewhere alongside his humanity, spilled across the cobblestones in a town he’d never see again.

It was almost fascinating, how large spaces and immeasurable time eluded to the very opposite. How, standing in the middle of an open forest, Jongin could feel so trapped.

He ended up staring into the billowing flames, standing close enough to hear the fire’s hushed language and feel its scorching tongue. He listened as well he could.

There was wisdom within its pulsing heat, magic curling with every lick. It singed and stabbed, lapping at iron with a beastly ferocity. It tasted the metal of its cage, blazing itself into non-existence in spite of it all. It enjoyed the hunt, enjoyed the kill. The burning of oxygen as it ran. The roaring flames begged for release, for the sustenance it needed to maintain its tether.

He was saying its name.

“Jongin!” At once, Kyungsoo was at his side.

Snapping his gaze from the scarlet dance to glittering eyes of redwood, Jongin became aware of the sharp pain and the throbbing in his mouth. Iron, he tasted iron.

“Jongin, loosen your jaw. You’ve bitten your tongue.”

Kyungsoo’s hand was on his cheek, but a touch warmer than skin trickled down his chin. It tickled, and he swiped at it with a hand, his ashy complexion coming away crimson. He opened his mouth as wide as it would go with a crack of his jaw, and even though the movement was sudden, he was still intimately aware of the feeling of the rods rubbing against flesh as they pulled out.

It didn’t taste as good as he had feared it would. In fact, he drowned in it when he realised he couldn’t force himself to swallow. It ran down his throat until he coughed it back up, thick rivulets spilling over cracked lips and pattering against the rug below. It hurt and it hurt and Jongin accepted it would just about hurt forever.

“You need to drink this.” The witch’s voice continued to call to him. A mug was pressed into his hand, but he pushed it away.

It felt like an atonement for something, the torment in his head and the agony in his body. If is was, did that make love his sin? Trust? Perhaps it was repentance for something he hadn’t even done yet. That thought sailed through the air and planted itself like the seed of a dandelion. That thought was what scared him most.

“I’m dying,” he choked, “I’m dying!”

Kyungsoo was saying something, but all Jongin could hear were the growls from throats and the clenching of stained teeth. They’d asked him, in a hissing accent, about a vial. A cure. They’d demanded Kyungsoo’s head on a pike and Jongin had refused. He’d been so confused.

He opened his eyes at last, blood splattered in front of him. Jongin’s fingers clawed at the ground until threads caught and pulled at his nails. It was the thick, tightly woven rug beneath him again instead of the jagged stone alley. There was no blood either: the carpet was a sewn collage of russets. Pristine and opulent.

“K-Kyung-?”

“I’m here. I’m here, Jongin.” An uncomfortable heat drew lines into his back from delicate fingertips, and it felt like the painful warmth that accompanied thawing hands in winter. “Shh, I’ll make it go away.”

Jongin watched as a drop fell from somewhere near his mouth onto the rug. It stained and spread, before retreating until only its memory remained. Like a raindrop in a desert, it was gone.

“Stop.” He was panting, trying to get air passed his clogged throat. It wasn’t adding up -- it never had, and he was sure of that now. But Jongin had been too poor to learn such skills as how to read or do sums, and it felt like the only faith he had was deliberately blinded.

“Stop what-”

“Everything! Trying to make it go away!” He yelled as hard as he could, though his voice was gone and the exclamation was hollow. He still felt Kyungsoo jolt by his side. “You can’t just magic all the bad things away,” he said, quieter this time, all the while the fire kept whispering in his ear. “They’ll never be gone until you defeat them; you’re just ignoring them.”

He was tired, he realised. It was the most human feeling he’d had in too long a time, and with his lethargy came a shadow of something not entirely unlike hope.

“I just…” If Kyungsoo himself was a bad thing, then his tone gave away his immediate departure. “I just want to take away your pain, Jongin.”

“I don’t think you can,” he replied, slumping back. A sturdy heat supported him from behind as his head continued to hang forward. The last ribbons of blood didn’t disappear from the carpet when they met, and only then did Jongin reach out his hand. “Hot chocolate.”

The beverage was still steaming, the mug itself almost piping hot. Still, when the liquid hit his mangled tongue it numbed. It tasted vaguely bitter, but mostly cold. So, so cold. The frosty feeling was welcomed as his flesh stitched itself back together again and his fangs retracted into his gums.

When he finished the drink, the slimy goo of marshmallow slid down the side of the mug behind it. Even though the rest of the beverage had been anything but normal, the marshmallow still tasted sweet and soft.

It was just like when Jongin and his childhood friends had stolen a jar of lemon drops from one of their mothers and eaten them all in a hurry to not be found; the sugar rush blazed through his veins and awakened his cloudy mind. The tiredness was gone, though not the lethargy.

“They told me what you stole, you know,” Jongin said. He rocked forward and up onto his feet, leaving the empty mug ditched next to the bleeding carpet. “And I still tried to protect you from them, still _believed_ you.” He returned to the couch, which groaned in greeting. He had a clear view of Kyungsoo as he continued to sit on the floor, though he wasn’t facing him. “Is that why you’ve kept me around?”

Hair shifted with urgency as Kyungsoo whirled to face Jongin. A pink curtain covered his eyes, and the lower half of his face was etched in cold marble. “How could you even think that.”

Something stung behind Jongin’s eyes as he let out a short laugh. “What am I supposed to think?” The seam of the couch threatened to burst with how hard he was picking at it. “That even though I told you how I felt about you and _died_ trying to protect you, when you apparently didn’t even need it, that everything’s okay?” White stuffing bleed from old leather with a pop, inhaling and expanding as it escaped. “You lied to me and now I’m dead.”

“Jongin, stop!” The marble crumbled, and Kyungsoo broke. For a moment, the cabin was quiet save for the echo of Jongin’s words and the wretched sobbing that streamed from the cracks between the witch's fingers. “Please, just stop,” he cried.

But Jongin wasn’t done, and both the howling flurries outside and the fire within bore witness to his simple accusation. "You just don't care about me the way I do you."

"I didn't tell you I loved you that night _precisely_ because I do!" Hands unfastened from in front of his face, revealing the pink that settled high on the witch’s cheeks and the tip of his nose. "Do you think I wanted this for you? I tried to keep you away from this, from me."

He too stood from the floor, and as he rounded the coffee table, all the candles around the room flickered and flinched. Jongin only then noticed the shimmer to his skin, the silver streaks that glittered as they inched down his face. The iridescent tears looked like falling angels, and when Kyungsoo sat next to him, Jongin couldn’t help but catch one with a swipe of his finger. The liquid was thicker than regular tears, far more beautiful than Jongin’s frozen ones had been, and when he rolled it between his index and thumb it coated his skin in a translucent glitter.

"You're right, I can never change what happened, but I can at least take away some of your pain," Kyungsoo explained, covering the hand Jongin was still staring at with his own. The tear was trapped between them, fusing them in union. Jongin turned his hand around, pressing their palms together, and enjoying the softness against his roughened skin.

“Then tell me. Here, now,” he said. “What I’ve been waiting to hear for months.”

Kyungsoo leaned closer, until Jongin could see every individual pink hair on his face and every earnest reflection of light in his smooth, brown eyes. He blinked only once before his lips parted.

“Jongin,” he began slowly, “I, most selfishly and ardently, am entirely in love with you.”

Something sparked and crackled in his unbeating heart, and a warmth spread through his chest like something had burst. It felt like a memory; like the first time they’d met when Jongin had offered to help set up Kyungsoo’s new apothecary, or later, when Jongin had fallen ill and Kyungsoo came to his house to read to him. Of course, now, Jongin knew the whole truth. Kyungsoo was no longer glamoured to look like a human, and Jongin wasn’t one either. But the warmth, for some reason, felt exactly the same.

He cupped Kyungsoo’s face, swiftly wiping away all traces of his shimmering tears, and leaned further forward until their lips -- like their fates -- were sealed.

Kyungsoo’s lips were laced with magic. His breath, a warm temptation. A tingling spread across his own mouth as he pressed and pressed, and Jongin knew Kyungsoo was healing him. His cracked lips no longer stung as Kyungsoo swiped his tongue along their length, drinking in his appreciation with a hum. Hands settled on his chest like they knew they already owned what lay dormant within and Jongin sighed into the kiss.

A moment later saw him pulling back, his lip curving as he watched Kyungsoo follow him for a second. When Kyungsoo opened his eyes, brow raised in question, Jongin traced his jaw with a delicate line.

“I love you too.”

Kyungsoo’s saccharine smile simmered down into a bittersweet grin, and he broke their eye contact to watch his hands fiddle with the hem of Jongin’s shirt.

“Even after everything I’ve done to you…? After everything they said about me?” he asked.

“All they said was that you had stolen something from them: a cure for vampirism.” Jongin wondered if it was true, if it had been in the small leather case Kyungsoo had brought with them. Maybe he'd even been holding it when he found Jongin bleeding out in the alleyway behind his apothecary.

“Of course that’s what they said.” Kyungsoo rubbed at his eyebrow, running his tongue over his bottom lip. Perhaps a ghost of Jongin’s taste lingered there, as Kyungsoo’s did on his own. “What they didn’t mention is that it’s _my_ cure.” His sentence broke off into a sigh, and he hung his head with a small shake, “And it’s not even right yet.”

“You’re trying to make a cure?”

“Yes, for all the good it’s done me,” he replied. Kyungsoo lifted his head with a grimace, grabbing Jongin’s hands and squeezing them as if he could force his sincerity into Jongin’s grasp. “I shouldn’t have brought you into this, I’m sorry you have to live on the run now.”

Jongin smiled, even though it cracked the corners of his lips to do so. “Shh,” he hushed, “There’s no one I’d rather be a runaway with.”

He leaned forward again, this time with the intention of healing Kyungsoo. The kiss was as pure as the falling snow outside, warm flurries swirling and dancing in his stomach for the first time in a long time. He raked his fingers through Kyungsoo’s soft pink locks, though with closed eyes he could imagine them to still be dark brown. In fact, he could imagine all of Kyungsoo looking as he had once upon a time; dark hair, tanned skin, and regular clothes. He could almost pretend they were in the apothecary, in another life where he’d been brave enough to admit his desires earlier.

The spitting of the fire had never been in the apothecary, nor the chilly winds that made the floorboards creak. But when Kyungsoo’s tongue brushed against his, Jongin didn’t really mind.

But the banging, he couldn’t ignore.

His hands froze as a bolt of fear struck his core like lightning. Two more booming knocks to the door had him reeling back. The urgency in his lungs, reflected by the panic in Kyungsoo’s eyes, was enough for him to know Kyungsoo had lied to him again. They _had_ found them.


End file.
